Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
